Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Thirty-Five

Jesse went back to his office after lunch, spent the rest of the afternoon researching crypto and people that various governments around the world were starting to catch, trying to get a sense of how the ones who had been caught had messed up.

And could not shake the feeling that he was out of his depth here.

He rarely felt that way when working a case, even when he was in the place he sometimes thought of as the deep, dark forest. It was because the subject, or at least a part of it, was money. Jesse had never cared about money, even when he was married to Jenn. Maybe there had been a time in his life, before he’d ruined his shoulder that day in Albuquerque, when he thought about being rich as a ballplayer, and famous. But then that was gone. And he was a cop. Cops didn’t make much money, in L.A. or here. Or anywhere. The job wasn’t about that. The job was about the J-O-B. He had some money in the bank. Jenn, at least until she had quit television — or television had quit her — had always had money of her own, and had asked for nothing when they got divorced and before she had finally become rich by marrying a rich guy.

Her shit, Jesse liked to tell himself, had finally come in.

Jesse knew the basics. How much he made, what his annual bump in salary was going to be, what he had in his savings account, what his pension would look like someday, if he ever made it that far. He’d made some money on the old man’s house when he’d died, and invested it in some long-term bond funds that the late Abby Taylor, the lawyer with whom he’d once been in love, had suggested. The returns were steady enough that Jesse rarely checked them these days.

He knew enough about hedge funds from Sandy Lipton, and because Sunny had gotten herself involved in a case about a dead hedge-fund guy who had nearly walked away with Spike’s restaurant in Boston during the first siege of COVID. But even that subject was above what Jesse considered his pay grade. And was fine with that.

Only now along came crypto.

And Charlie’s interest in it.

Who’s the rooster in the henhouse? Jesse asked himself, for maybe the fiftieth time since he and Nicholas had read Charlie’s text.

He was after a murderer here, that made him feel as if he were on solid ground. Whoever it was, and whatever Charlie had found out about him, Jesse knew this:

He was smarter.

He’d never believed the old line about jails housing only dumb guys. Some very smart guys had ended up getting themselves locked up. But even the smart ones finally slipped up, somewhere along the way.

This guy would slip up. It was what Jesse kept telling himself. Whoever did it to Charlie was the one who was out of his depth.

Because I’m the one after him.

Neither Molly nor Suit was around when he decided to leave for home. He thought about calling Nellie and asking her if she wanted to order dinner in at her place, but decided he would just go home instead, order in there. He did, from Sushi Moto, let Delivery Dudes do their thing, ate General Tao’s chicken, extra-crispy, and fried rice, and some dumplings.

He thought about calling his son, Cole, in London for a month after falling hard for an English actress he’d met in L.A. They hadn’t spoken in a couple of weeks. But it was late there. He’d call him when all the craziness ended. If it ever did.

What henhouse had Charlie been talking about?

There was no ballgame tonight. He looked at his channel guide and saw that Unforgiven had started on Turner Classic Movies while he’d been eating, turned it on, stayed with it until the frontier justice when Eastwood caught up with Gene Hackman and put one in his head.

Jesse went to bed after that.

It was right before dawn the next morning, about the time when Jesse was first opening his eyes, when Suit called. Never good at this time of the morning.

Ever.

Kind of call that couldn’t wait.

“Somebody just called in another body from the water over there at Bluff Lookout,” Suit said. “Five minutes ago.”

“ID.”

“Jesse, I called you as soon as we got the call. I’m on my way over there now.”

There was a pause at Suit’s end.

“What else?” Jesse said.

“There’s a wheelchair down there, too,” Suit said.